


All The Stars

by Lunar_Resonance



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, very loosely inspired by sleeping beauty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-26 06:12:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14396004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunar_Resonance/pseuds/Lunar_Resonance
Summary: Lucid dreaming has always been an escape for Maka until a white-haired boy starts turning up in her dreams and insisting that he's real. But it's not until she agrees to help him get home that the line between dreams and reality begin to blur.





	1. Allucinor

**Allucinor:** noun; to wander in dreaming

* * *

 

The white-haired prince plagues her sleep.

She didn’t know exactly how she knew he’s a prince; after all she was the daughter of a widowed book merchant, down on his luck and more prone to be found warming a stool in one of the capital’s many taverns than the marketplace, but what was more is that the king of Lycrene only had daughters.

Her next thought after Maka got a good look at him was that he was a twisted version of the shape-shifting monster in a traveling troupe’s play she had watched as a rare treat to herself for her birthday, bone-white hair, eyes that blazed red and teeth resembling the jagged crown of mountains that surrounded the capital.

Maka studied him for a moment after he had abruptly veered into her vision; lucid dreaming was strange and she could never tell what her dreams would come up with, but it was only in her dreams that she could journey to places she would only ever visit in books so she put up with the nightmares her mind occasionally tried to lob at her.

“Who are you?” he demanded, planting himself in front of her. His voice was oddly muted, even though he was only a foot away, and human, despite his appearance, with a slight lilt that was almost musical. “What did you do to me?”

Maka flicked him hard on the nose, and continued to move down the country lane that was the setting for that night’s dream. “You’re not real.”

To her surprise, he did not disappear, as most imagined figments of her dreams did when she informed them of their non-existence, but he swerved in front of her again, face red and mouth agape as he spluttered. “Excuse me?”

Blinking away her shock, Maka set her hand on her hips, fixing the stranger with the look her mama used to give her father when he crept into the house far past the time the marketplace closed. She pronounced her words slowly. “You. Aren’t. Real.”

He gaped a little more and then his mouth snapped shut. He crossed his arms, looking less like the monster she’d thought he was and more like a sullen child. “And how do you know you’re real?”

That had stymied her. “Because,” Maka finally said. “I wake up.” The words had sounded more eloquent and impressive in her head, but then again she was sleeping.

“I wake up too!” the boy said, flinging his hands in the air. “I was awake seconds ago and now I’m here!”

Maka’s patience had dried up then. Rarely had her dreams argued their proof of reality to her and she only had so many hours before she had to wake up and begin the daily dredge of dodging debt collectors, repairing books, and searching for an investor that did not know her father.

“For what it’s worth, you existed now,” she said as the woods around them shifted and melded in a storm of color, eating up everything except her.

She sighed as her dream resettled itself into an endless sea of sand and howling wind. Her mother had been the one to teach Maka how to be aware of her dreaming, but she did not have the amount of control over her dreams that her mother had.

The white of the boy’s hair was almost blinding as he popped in front of her again. His mouth was set in a sulky scowl. “I’m still here.”

Maka groaned.

From then on, the boy appeared in her dreams nightly, no matter what thoughts Maka filled her mind with before she went to sleep, following after her like a stray dog trailing after the meat vendor in the capital square, despite the number of times she changed her dreams. After a week of constantly shifting dreams and waking up more exhausted than when she had been, Maka gave up.

Instead of trying to erase the boy, she moved to ignoring him, although that did nothing to dampen his demands to “return him” or his determination to be a persistent thorn in her side.

“Send me back,” the boy said as Maka wiped her bloodied sword on the hide of the great boar she brought down.

“Just let me go back,” he said as she scaled the towering silver cliffs bordering the edge of Lycrene.

“I don’t want to be here as much as you don’t want me here,” he said as she paused in the middle of walking through the vast forests of Tycia, feeling the foundation of the dream shake as she began to wake up in the real world.

His words had the weight of someone who had said them before, and for the first time since they met, Maka looked the boy in the eyes.

Her own eyes opened before she could say anything, but instead of immediately rising, Maka watched as the blazing crimson of the rising sun through her window bled to gold, thoughts flying to a million places but always returning to one. For the rest of the day, Maka broke her rule of turning her thoughts away from the boy since he appeared three months ago, nearly slicing through the covers of several books with her scissors as she opened new shipments. The boy wasn’t like the nightmares that swarmed her dreams when she was young, even if she couldn’t get rid of him, and in some way, his company was the only true company she had in a long time. But when she went to sleep, she still had no idea what to say to him, if she would say anything at all.

Everything on Maka’s mind vanished once the dream had settled and she saw what it unfolded as.

Her house shone brightly with fresh paint and the false warmth of memory, even with the clouds cast overhead, the cobblestones on her street gleaming like jewels from the morning dew. Birdsong from the doves that lived in the nearby trees filled the air with a cheerful tune, but Maka’s heart knotted itself in cacophony of frenzied beating as the dream pushed her down the street.

The graveyard was empty when she entered, like it always was, sunlight streaming down from the gaps between the clouds. Maka walked forward and tried to turn the dream, like she always did, but there was no power she held over this dream.

She stopped at the foot of the grave and felt the sway of the dream hold her there. For several moments, she stared at the ground even though her head ached to rise. She felt her feet sink into the soft mud as she dug her heels into the ground, refusing to look up at the name newly etched on the gravestone, although she knew the dream wouldn’t let go until she looked.

The sound of footsteps behind her was a relief for once, and she watched as the boots of the boy filled the corner of her vision and paused a couple feet from her.

It was impossible to see what he was staring at without looking up so she studied his shoes with a desperate kind of interest.  _ Golden thread,  _ she noted as she eyed the laces of the boots, which were made with a fine leather that she only saw in the windows of the royal shoemaker’s shop. She almost snorted.  _ Fancy for an imaginary person. _

“This is real, isn’t it?” the boy finally asked.

She nearly looked up in her surprise, digging her nails in her palms to keep her gaze rooted on the freshly dug grave. “How do you know that?”

There was a slight squelching noise as he shifted. “All of your other dreams have this shine to them, like it’s what you imagine they are,” he said. “This one doesn’t.”

“You’re right.” Maka hoped her sob sounded like a laugh. She lifted her head, eyes tracing her mother’s name on the stone. “It doesn’t.”

The dream released her and she turned it, the boy still visible at the corner of her eye. When they settled, they were at the curve of a great river. She didn’t move, however, but listened as the water roared past.

“You’re not the one keeping me here,” the boy said after a moment.

“No,” Maka replied. She raised her gaze; his eyes had looked like shards of dried blood when she first saw him, although they looked more like living rubies now. “I have no idea why you’re here.”

He held her gaze for a few moments. “I guess I have to believe you.”

She laughed, something she hadn’t thought she’d do tonight. “Your vote of confidence is heartwarming.”

“I try to be honest.”

She rolled her eyes and went quiet for a minute. “You believe you’re real.”

He scoffed slightly, but something eased in his expression. “I know I’m real.”

She nodded and somehow it felt like a truce of sorts; he called himself Soul when she asked his name, though he refused to explain why or anything else about himself, and joined her adventures for the night instead of only following after her, albeit with plenty of grumbling when her dreams involved too much walking and monsters.

They fell into a routine after that-it never took more than a few minutes for Soul to find Maka when she fell asleep, and it only took another two weeks before she began saving stories from the day to share with him.

It was nearly summer again when Maka realized that she wished Soul was as real as he believed he was. He had flopped to the ground on his back after a particularly grueling battle with a gorgon, letting his sword fall out of his hand and closing his eyes. “Can’t we ever spend one of your dreams in a library or something?”

She sat down beside him, laughing in spite of the odd ache in her heart. “Is even imaginary work too much for the poor prince?”

His eyes flew open. “What?”

She waved him down. “You complain like one.”

He closed his eyes again. “Plenty of people do.”

“You’re also dressed like one,” she continued, nudging his shoulder. “Did you tick off a fairy and that’s why you’re here?”

That earned an amused grunt from him. “Fairies don’t exist, Maka.”

“In our kingdom, they do.”

When he spoke again, there was a tension in his words that Maka wouldn’t have noticed if his expression hadn’t tightened as well. “What does your kingdom look like?”

“Lycrene is mostly mountains and the most southern country on the continent,” she said, choosing not to comment on the change in his tone. “There’s some deserts to the east, which leads into Igorith. To the north is Tycia, it has forests and lakes, and to the west is the Belryn sea.”

“And across?”

“Viradia,” she said. “The land of gold and paradise or whatever they call themselves now.”

He snorted. “Just gold and knowledge. Although there would be others who would agree on the paradise thing. ”

She flushed-it was no secret that the Viradia’s universities were the best in the world, but no person on this side of the sea admitted it after leaving Viradia on its own to rebuild after their civil war nearly destroyed the country. Barely a century later, Viradia was now flourishing as the center of global commerce and, whether it was out of shame or the self-indignation that came from missing the opportunity to ally with what was to be the most prosperous country in the world, no one on the continent of Xerith spoke of Viradia without a trace of jealous scorn in their voice.

Which was also why Maka admitted to no one she dreamed of studying there.

“I suppose,” she allowed. Then his words sink in and she narrows her eyes. “Are you from Viradia?”

Soul raised his eyebrows. “I thought I just admitted it.”

“And why not admit it a long time ago?” she exclaimed, nudging him again with more force. “I would have believed you when you said you were real!”

“You know at least something about everything, including Viradia,” Soul said, finally sitting up. “Wouldn’t your dreams know the same as you?”

Maka narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you trying to convince me that you’re not real?”

“No, no,” said Soul hastily, lifting a hand. “I-well…” he trailed off, sweeping a hand through his hair. He glanced at Maka without meeting her eyes. “Do you think I’m real?”

Answering takes less time than Maka believed it would. “Yes.”

The expression on Soul’s face was unreadable, but it quickly shifted into relief mixed with apprehension. “I need to get back to Viradia.”

Maka frowned. “Aren’t you there now?” At his confused look, she added, “You’re only here when you’re dreaming too, right?”

“No.” He shook his head. “When you’re dreaming, I’m here, but when you’re not-”

She filled in when he broke off. “You’re nowhere?”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but in the end, he only nodded. “Close enough.”

“So what do I do?” she asked. “Your body has to be somewhere.”

“I live in the capital.” Every word seemed to cost him. “It’s nice there.”

She let out a dry laugh. “There’s over half a million people in Viradia’s capital, Soul.”

For a long minute, Soul struggled to speak. It looked less like he didn’t know what to say and more that he physically couldn’t talk about whatever he was trying to say.

“I’m very recognizable,” he finally managed. “Even if you haven’t met me before now, you’d know me.”

Maka took in his clothes again, thinking back to the beginning of their conversation. “You  _ are _ a prince.”

The same pained expression came across Soul’s face as he fought to speak. “I can’t say much about it,” he said, glancing at Maka. “Clearly. I couldn’t say anything until you believed me, but-”

Suddenly, his gaze shifted, peering behind Maka just as the world around them turns dark. Her line of vision tilted as Soul lunged forward, knocking her away as  _ something _ screeched, very loud and near.

And then Maka woke up.

* * *

The thud of Maka’s heart thundered in her ears as she flew up from her bed, Soul’s name on her lips. She nearly expected to see the cave of the gorgon instead of her room, however, the sight of her bookshelves greets her, along with the familiar creak of the floorboards underneath her feet.

Maka sat down on her bed, brushing her hair out of her eyes.  _ Just a dream, _ she tells herself in the same way her mother would tell her when she woke up from a particularly bad nightmare.

But Soul was not just a dream.

She closed her eyes and leaned back on the bed, but there was no denying the faint streaks of dawn painted across the slowly lightening sky peeking through her window nor how long it would take her to ease back into sleep.

_ It’s okay,  _ Maka forced herself to rise, pushing down the wave of unease down her throat.  _ Everything stops when I wake up. _

Except that monster had been awfully close.

The day inches by in a near standstill. Maka buries the nerves digging just underneath her skin like a knife’s point by spending her free time and most of her lunch break searching for contemporary history books on Viradia, but the most recent book she finds goes back nearly fifty years.On her way home, she tried looking through the newstands, even though she knows no newspaper in Xerith prints news about Viradia except for big news and the commerce section, and even that was only a dry reporting of numbers.

It was Friday, which meant her father will be at the tavern many hours past his usual time, so Maka skipped dinner and went straight to bed as soon as she got home, though it took over an hour for her to get her thoughts to stop racing and her eyes to droop.

Her dream came together in pieces, unlike its immediate unfolding, something that solidifies the budding dread in Maka’s stomach. The seaside port of Ve Altum, Viradia’s capital, slowly put itself together, and as soon as the last piece wedged itself in place, Maka bolted forward. “Soul?”

Maka stopped only after taking a few steps; there are people here, as there generally is in her dreams, but these people have no faces, yet they turned towards her as one, like a string of puppets.

Fear locked Maka in place; for several moments, she did nothing.

The people did nothing, either.

Walking again took looking down at her feet and nothing else, but no one attacked Maka as she began to move forward. Silence was embedded in this world-there was no sound other than her heartbeat as Maka slowly moved off what appeared Ve Altum’s largest wharf. 

The weight of the people’s faceless gaze pulls at Maka as she wandered cautiously through the maze of shops and warehouses lining the wharf until she felt like she was going to be driven mad and turned the dream.

There was noise in the small glen Maka found herself in, birdsong and a bubbling brook nearby, but the silence of her first dream rests on Maka like a stone, and she knows she could go back to Ve Altum if she wanted to.

Soul’s silence was louder, however.

The sudden ache in her chest shook the dream loose, and Maka opened her eyes to a still-dark room. She crushed the heels of her palms to her eyes, stamping out the tears brimming there, before letting her hands fall to her sides.

Maka stared up at the ceiling. “Where did you go, Soul?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Ensorcell:** noun; to enchant, bewitch, fascinate.  


* * *

 

The pier of Ve Altum greeted Maka with its silence and faceless people the moment she fell asleep for the next four nights before the tenuous patience of Soul’s disappearance snapped. She woke up on the fourth night with her face covered in sweat and hands curled in fists; bearing the silence and gaze of the people was difficult to bear for long, but turning the dream like she had done the first night was getting harder and harder to do. Tonight, it had been nearly impossible to manage at all, and she had let panic get the best of her, waking herself up instead of fighting the pull of the dream.

She threw off her blankets and sat up, threading her fingers through her hair. The dream had been different this time. Instead of finding herself standing on the pier, she had been in the middle of a courtyard. It was made out of a white marble so bright and dazzling that it had hurt her eyes.

From what Maka had been able to make out, the courtyard was lined by columns covered in gold carvings that glowed in the sun and trees whose leaves shone like emeralds. She’d thought back to Soul’s eyes and the pearl embedded in the street running along the pier in that moment and wondered if there was anything that wasn’t made out of gold or precious stone in Viradia.

But it was the low whisper weaving through the columns that had grabbed her attention. She had been unable to move for some reason so it had taken time to catch the rhythm of the voice and even longer to make out what they were saying and then she had heard it.

Her name.

Soul’s voice.

Except it was and it wasn’t his voice, the poor mimic of something dark, decaying, and ancient.

Something had shifted in the corner of her vision and she hadn’t waited to see if whatever it was came after her.

The voice was still crawling in her head as she rose from the bed and went to her window. Her gaze skipped over the towering spires of the cathedral, only streets away, and the graveyard below, traveling over to the moon, partially masked by a scattered sea of semi-transparent clouds, and then to the glow of the moonlight reflecting off the waves of the Belryn sea in the distance. 

The thought that had been niggling at the back of her head since Soul’s disappearance raises its voice now, and she blew out a frustrated breath. Helplessness was a feeling she never knew how to stomach-it was either action or acceptance, she never let herself hover in the middle. But to act would mean leaving her father behind to deal with the debt that had slowly accumulated since her mother died seven years ago, and to accept would be to leave Soul to whatever had trapped him in her dreams in the first place.

Maka pressed her hands against the cold panes of the window, closing her eyes. “What do I do?”

“The question everyone is always asking themselves.”

Maka whipped around, heart leaping in her throat. She quashed her scream when her eyes fell on the cat on her bed, purple-black coat like burnished metal in the low light of her room, eyeing the creature carefully as it rose to its feet. Fairies and other magical creatures rarely visited Lycrene’s capital, and the ones who did were vexing time wasters, spinning gullible humans along for their own amusement, but ultimately benign, although she had heard of no good things that had come from those who broke into the homes of random people.

“Do you know what cats ask themselves?” the cat asked, oblivious to Maka’s shock as it leaped lightly from the bed, tail swishing. “ _ How _ do I do this?”

“What are you?” Maka interrupted. As the words left her mouth, it occurred to her that they might be the last words she ever said-magical beings had a tendency for changing those who offended them into toads or worse.

But while the cat fixed her with an insulted glare, it did nothing but haughtily turn its head away from Maka. “Blair is my name,” she said. “And all you need to know is I made a bet.”

It took Maka biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “And that would be?”

“To prove that my magic is better than any fairy’s hocus pocus!” At this, the offense from earlier faded away and the cat twisted around to face Maka again.

“And you would be accomplishing that how?” she asked skeptically.

“By helping you lift your curse,” the cat answered, jumping up on the window sill to be nearly eye-to-eye with Maka. “It’s not your curse exactly, but-”

“Curse?” Maka’s voice rose, though a loud snore from her father’s room across the hallway makes her drop back down to a whisper. “What curse?”

“It’s hanging over your house like a storm cloud,” Blair said with a quizzical tilt of her head. “Don’t you feel it?”

Maka hesitated only for a moment before filling Blair in with the barest of details about Soul. The more logical part of her asked if it was really the wisest idea to trust a magical being with debatably good intentions, but magical help often didn’t come without promising your firstborn or more, so she would take what she could get.

“And he’s been gone for four days?” Blair asked when Maka finished. “Tonight was the only night you heard his voice?”

She nodded. “What does it mean?”

“Fae deijin.“ The words sent an unpleasant roiling through Maka’s stomach. Deijin were fairies who had fallen under the sway of dark magic. To be cursed by one meant having your life stolen away until you were nothing more than a puppet of the deijin. How Soul managed to evade the deijin for almost a year was a mystery to her since getting the attention of a deijin was an near immediate death sentence.

“This one seems to be taking its time in draining away the prince or is delayed by a ward of some kind.” Blair was suddenly businesslike. “The first thing we need to do is anchor his soul,” she said. “He won’t be long for this world without it.” Her eyes, bright as gold coins, searched the room and lit up when they fell on the small mirror hanging over Maka’s writing desk. “That will do.”

“Why a mirror?” Maka asked as she followed the cat to the desk.

“Have you ever heard of the myth that mirrors should be covered at night so a dreamer’s soul doesn’t get trapped in it?”

“Are you saying that’s not an old wives’ tale?” Maka watched as Blair rose up on her hindlimbs, pushing her face close to the mirror as she breathed on the glass. “Why are you doing that?”

“Trading essence of a soul for another,” the cat said, lowering herself back down. “Takes a bit of your life every time you do it, which is why I’m a cat.”

Before Maka could ask any more questions, Soul’s face, faint but distinct.

“Soul!” Maka moved forward, pulling the mirror off the nail it hanged on. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” His voice had the same involuntary reluctance as when he had asked for help four days ago.

“Deijin curses prevent the cursed person from talking about it,” Blair said. Maka let out a small grunt as the cat jumped onto her shoulder and peered interestedly into the mirror. She tilted her head to one side. “He looks like the curse has taken him already.”

“I was born looking like this,” Soul retorted. “Who is this cat anyways?”

But Maka saw what Blair meant-there were purple shadows spreading underneath his eyes and hollows in his cheeks like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Even his voice seemed cracked somehow, clear one moment and practically inaudible the next.

“Her name is Blair, though she’s not exactly a cat,” Maka said. “She bound you in this mirror.”

Soul’s eyebrows shot upwards. “You trapped me in a mirror?” he said incredulously.

Blair graced him with a slight incline of her head. “You’re welcome.”

“She said it was to save you,” Maka whispered defensively when Soul turned his gaze to her. 

“You took the word of a talking cat?”

“Magical cat,” Blair corrected.

“Same thing.”

“There’s no changing it now,” Maka intervened. She shifted her eyes to Blair. “Now what?”

“The only way to stop a deijin’s curse is to go directly to the source.” Blair pushed herself off from Maka’s shoulders and landed lightly on the desk. “Otherwise, our charming prince only has a month at best.”

There was a sharp lurch in Maka’s chest. “A month?”

“Which means we need to get moving,” said the cat. “Summer storms tend to get rough around this time of year.”

Maka glanced at Soul, felt her heart clench, and looked down. My father spends most of his time in one bar or another,” she said quietly. “He’d never be able to maintain the shop on his own.”

Soul opened his mouth, but Blair spoke over him. “That’s easily fixable,” she said with a dismissive swish of her tail. “How often do you see him?”

She swallowed down the lump in her throat before she answered. “Only in the mornings, usually.”

“I need something solid to work with then.” The cat looked around the room for a moment and then she made her way over to the end of the desk. She eyed the porcelain doll sitting on the edge of the desk, a gift from Maka’s mother that she never had been able to get rid of, in spite of the fact that she’d rarely played with dolls. “She resembles you well enough.”

As the cat spoke, the doll seemed to grow before Maka’s eyes, until she was no longer looking at a doll, but a perfect mirror of herself. She drew close and studied the doll, feeling a prickle of awed unease as her eyes traced over the faint scar just below the doll’s ear, exactly where the scar she got when she fell out of a tree was. “And you still need to prove that your magic is better than a fairy’s?”

“Fairies are vain.” Blair’s chest puffed out a little in pride. “My specialty is illusion and slight increases in luck.”

“Increase in luck?” Soul cut in.

“Only a slight one,” the cat emphasized. “Nothing to go gambling your life on.”

He snorted. “Wonderful.”

Blair leaped from the desk, and the doll followed, as if guided by an invisible hand. It settled into Maka’s bed, lifting the blankets over itself. “She’ll mind the shop and talk a little with your father for a month, which is our deadline anyways.” The cat made for Maka’s door. “I’ll be waiting downstairs,” she said as she squeezed through the little opening between the door and the doorway.

Maka stood still for a few seconds, staring at the outline of the doll in her bed, and then she began to move, tucking the mirror to her side as she grabbed a bag from her closet and stuffed a pair of boots and her most durable clothes into it.

Then she got on her knees, feeling around for the small purse of coins she kept in the corner of her closet. It had taken years of saving tips from the side jobs she worked to keep the shop afloat, and she had meant to use it to pay part of her way into one of Viradia’s universities, but Soul’s life was more important than that.

“You don’t have to do this.”

Soul spoke just as Maka began easing open her door, not quite looking at her. “It was an accident that I ended up in your dreams,” he said. “It’s not your obligation to fix.”

Maka’s hand dropped from the door; she raised the mirror to her face, waiting to speak until Soul met her eyes. “Maybe not,” she said. “But it is my choice.”

A flurry of emotions crossed Soul’s face and he opened his mouth to answer, but in the end, he only nodded.

With a nod of her own, Maka held his eyes for another moment and then she hoisted her bag over her shoulder, slipped through the door, and out into the hallway.


	3. Chapter 3

  **Belgard:** noun; a sweet or loving look; a silent intimacy. 

* * *

 

On the open sea, the stars glittered with a cold and brilliant radiance that was normally masked by the constant distractions of life, impossibly close and distant at the same time. The only thing that outshone them was the moon, round as a pearl and shimmering with the iridescence of opal. Combined with the crisp smell of sea spray in the air, it was magnificent, the kind of experience that Maka lived to feel in her dreams, but she saw nor felt none of it.

What she felt was the angry lurch of her stomach as her dinner went the way of her breakfast and lunch. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve as she pulled back from the railing, resting her head against the top rail and wishing her world didn’t feel it was about to upend with every jolt of the ship.

“Might be better if you go below deck,” a sailor with a beard as white as the froth of the waves. “Rolling of the ship ain’t so bad there.”

Maka nodded and gave him a shaky smile, as if she hadn’t heard the same thing from at least three different sailors earlier that day. It had been lucky enough that the _Serolith_ , a trading ship that had seen better days a long time ago, had accepted a girl and her peculiar-looking cat as stowaway passengers for only half of her savings-there was no need to risk offending its crew.  “I think I will, thank you.”

With wobbly legs, she did her best not to stumble away, something she nearly accomplished until the ship rocked back and forth with a violent shake just as she reached the stairs leading below deck. She tipped forward, barely keeping herself from tumbling down the stairs.

She hadn’t quite recovered by the time she reached the tiny room she, Soul, and Blair had called home for the past three weeks, although she tried her best to look like someone who hadn’t spent the last hour hanging over the ship’s railing.

Blair took one look at Maka as she entered and saw through her facade immediately. “You look like a half-drowned alley cat,” she said, golden eyes following Maka as she staggered across the room like a drunkard and all but collapsed on the nest of blankets that passed for a bed.

“Have experience with that feeling, do you?” she asked sourly, too cross and sick to attempt being pleasant.

“Not personally, no,” the cat answered, rising up from the coil of rope she claimed as her bed. “Unlike yourself.” Her stiff tail was the only sign that she was miffed, high in the air as she trotted daintily from the room.

For a second, Maka thought of calling her back, but then another bout of light-headedness crashed over her head, and she leaned back against the wall of the ship instead, digging for the mirror she had hastily stuffed in her bag before she had bolted for the deck an hour ago.

“I hate it when you throw me in there.” Soul sounded as grumpy as Maka felt as she lifted the mirror to her face. “It’s dark and musty.”

“Don’t tell me Blair binding you in that mirror gave you the power of smell too.”

“I can imagine it and that’s enough.”

“You are a prince in full.” she said with a snort. “Which is why you should be thanking me for not covering your visage with my dinner.”

“Again?” The peeved edge in Soul’s tone disappeared and he looked at Maka closely. He frowned and leaned close, as if he wanted to touch her face. “You look as terrible as I feel and that’s saying something.”

Maka rolled her eyes. “That is exactly what I love to hear from so-”

She broke off.

Soul raised an eyebrow. “From?”

“From anyone,” she said quickly, hoping he couldn’t make out the flush in her cheeks. “Especially from someone who needs me to break their beauty sleep.”

“Beauty sleep?” he asked.

“Well, you’re not walking around like a zombie, are you?” She placed the mirror beside her, angling it so Soul could only see one side of her face. What she had been going to add was as much as a mystery to her as it was to Soul, but all Maka knew was that she felt uncomfortably warm. “Anyways, my point is you should be kinder to me.”

Although she could only see Soul’s face, the way he bobbed in the mirror suggested he was sweeping her an exaggerated bow. “My greatest apologies, angel.”

“You’re not helping yourself.”

“I thought you wanted me to be kinder, angel.”

“Soul.”

_“Angel.”_

“I’m going to put you back in the bag,” she warned, but there was a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “And I won’t let you out until we land.”

“Like you’d be able to survive the boredom of being at sea without me.”

Rather than acknowledging his point, Maka hummed and settled into the blankets, feeling her dizziness subside a little after she closed her eyes. She was nearly asleep when the boat jolted abruptly, sending Maka rolling off her nest of blankets and facedown on the floor.

Nausea, which had finally released its hold on Maka, claimed her again with a vengeance. She moaned into the floorboards. “Why?”

Soul’s voice came from somewhere to the left. “Are you all right?”

“No.” With effort, Maka turned towards Soul, feeling blindly for the mirror until her fingers touched cool glass. She brought the mirror to her face and stared up at Soul. “I’ll be glad when we reach Viradia.”

“Only a few more days,” he said, a frown ghosting his mouth as his eyes glanced over her face. “At least, according to Blair.”

“You’re taking the word of a talking cat now?” Maka asked, mainly to distract herself from focusing on the nausea, which felt like a writhing pile of eels in her stomach.

“Magical talking cat.”

She smiled, but worry creased her brow. “And you?” She studied his face, which, on the three weeks they had been aboard the _Serolith_ , had gotten increasingly more gaunt and drained. There were some days where she was afraid Soul was simply going to fade away. “How are you doing?”

His head dipped in a shrug, showing the same nonchalance he’d shown life-or-death situations in her dreams. “As well as anyone in this situation could be,” he said. “Not dead.”

The furrow in Maka’s brow deepened as did her frown. “That’s a low bar to clear.”

“The only bar to clear when you’re cursed,” he rejoined.

“And that is morbidly optimistic.”

“Better than losing my head over something I can’t control.”

Thoughts of death turned Maka’s stomach more than the sea so she changed the subject. “Do you like Viradia?”

“It’s home.” After a few moments of silence, Soul added, “Ve Altum is never quiet, but not in a bad way. The sound of the waves mix in with traders arriving and boats leaving, though it quiets in the winter. And my parents built a series of gardens so there’s always a few birds singing.”

It was an answer in the same way it wasn’t. Maka hesitated and then she asked, “Do you like living there?”

“I’m the second son.” The curse still prevented him from saying prince. “No one scrutinizes me too much.”

For once, she could read his face like a book. “But they look at you?”

A pause. “Not much of that, either.” His voice turned into smoke, transparent enough at first glance, but nothing visible beyond the surface.

“I see you,” Maka said. Her heart had turned into one of the steam engine trains she used to ride with her mother. “Even though I didn’t want to, at first.”

Her words felt clumsy, but the distant look on Soul’s face vanished. In its place was an expression she couldn’t quite recognize, but it faded away as quickly as it had appeared. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You were a broken record for those first three months.”

“I still followed and helped you!”

“With mild to moderate complaining,” she retorted.

“Are you still up?” Blair dropped the fish that she had no doubt wormed out of a sailor with a too-soft heart for the cat’s sweet begging eyes on the floor as she entered the room.

“I’m cursed so I can’t sleep,” Soul said.

“And I’m trying to, but the sea is not cooperating.” Maka scooted back onto her blankets, bringing the mirror with her and placing it on top of the bag. Even though it was just as dark when night fell as it was inside the bag and he had no one to talk to while Maka and Blair slept, Soul said he preferred being outside than being in the bag.

“If you’re asleep, you won’t feel sick.” Blair showed none of her usual maternal worry like she had when seasickness had struck Maka after only a few days at sea. However, she did curl up next to Maka instead of arranging herself on her rope bed.

“Can’t your luck help with it?”

The warmth of Blair’s body and the low rumbling of her purr eased the ache in Maka’s stomach a little as the cat curled up beside her. “Luck only helps you so far, and unfortunately for you, it does not extend to your seasickness.”

Maka laughed, but there was only false humor in it. As the cabin fell silent, her gaze slid to the mirror. _So long as it extends to Soul,_ she thought. _That’s enough._


	4. Aporia

**Aporia:** adjective; refers to the feeling of being at a loss of the world in front of a person.  


* * *

 

Viradia after three weeks of being at sea was dazzling, wrapped in sea mist and shimmering with the fragility of a mirage, though it became more solid the closer the  _ Serolith  _ drew closer to Ve Altum. Maka stood near the bow of the boat, watching with rapt eyes as the seaport city gradually sharpened with details none of the pictures in the books she read about Viradia ever captured. The seawalls of Ve Altum’s great harbor loomed in the dying fog like the twin ghosts of giants and rose straight up from the water like a breaching whale-the white plaster of the walls looked like it had just been applied yesterday and not two hundred years ago.

Her eyes made their way up to the black dots that were the harbor’s watchtowers spaced out along the entire perimeter of the seawalls, little sparks of orange light winking into existence from on top of the towers as the sun began its slow descent beneath the horizon.

“Exactly how you pictured it?” A shadow balanced on the ship’s railing cropped up in the corner of Maka’s vision just before Blair jumped onto her shoulder, but weeks of the cat springing at her from the most unlikely of places left her unfazed and she did nothing more than shift slightly to adjust to Blair’s weight.

“Yes and no.” She pulled her gaze away from the lighthouse perched on the rocky crag a few hundred feet from the seawalls and cast a careful look around her before speaking. “It’s what I’ve seen and read about in books, but seeing it gives it…”

“A sense of reality?” suggested Soul’s muffled voice from within her bag. “Trust me, it gets old after a while.”

Maka bit back a smile at the grumpiness in his tone. “You weren’t saying that a few days ago.” She moved the flap of her bag open a bit so Soul could at least see a sliver of the sky. According to Blair, the only one other than herself and Blair who would be able to see Soul would be the deijin, and with their arrival at Ve Altum, she had insisted on keeping Soul hidden at all times, something he thoroughly disliked.

She kept the bag open until the  _ Serolith _ passed through the gates that lined the mouth of Ve Altum’s harbor and then she closed it, hearing a disgruntled sigh from Soul. As the ship moved past a few boats heading out to sea, Maka noticed steel bars thicker than the mast of the  _ Serolith _ wedged between the bricks of the walls. “What are those bars in the seawall?” she asked Soul out of the corner of her mouth.

“Gates in case of invasion, they’ve always been there.” Soul’s tone was matter-of-fact. “They can snap shut in less than three seconds. Makes your teeth shake if you’re standing on the wall above them when it happens.”

A shudder went through Maka. “You wouldn’t want to be passing by when that happened.”

“Luckily, it’s never happened.”

They didn’t have any more time to talk after that; there was a flurry of activity on the deck as the crew prepared for the ship to be inspected. With hardly any notice, Maka was ushered into an empty crate in the cramped hull of the  _ Serolith _ .

Freshly preserved leather hides from the Tycian plains and the varnish on Igorithian glass vases nearly choked Maka with their too-strong smell as the sailor who escorted them to the hull returned the lid over the crate and hobbled away. “Aren’t they going to check here too?”

“Not if my illusion holds,” answered Blair, jumping down from Maka’s shoulders. “Which it will.”

“Illusion of what?”

The cat flicked her tail. “Just watch.”

New voices above them kept Maka from arguing. These voices had the same lilt that she had noticed in Soul when they had first met, although it was masked by the formal tone of the voices.

“That’s the captain of the harbor,” came Soul’s voice of the bag. “They usually don’t inspect ships unless there is a problem.”

Maka risked speaking. “Like what?”

“Smuggling, usually.”

“Oh,” she said. “Perfect.”

Blair shushed them. “They’re coming!”

They both fell quiet as the voices became louder and clearer and the stairs leading into the hull creaked with the rhythm of footsteps. From what Maka could make of the conversation, the captain of the  _ Serolith _ was arguing with the other captain, demanding what reason there was for inspecting the ship, while the soldiers accompanying the harbor captain only repeated back that it was merely procedure.

“-and I’m saying I don’t care that it’s procedure.” The captain of the  _ Serolith _ sounded indignant his voice came dangerously near the crate where Maka was hidden. “You have no right to rip apart my ship.”

Neither the soldiers nor the captain bothered to answer him this time; the crash of crates being opened and tipped over rattled Maka’s eardrums, though the pounding of her heart inside her chest was even louder.

“The  _ deijin _ knows we are coming.” She nearly jumped at the sound of Blair hissing in her ear. The cat’s hair on her back was raised. “They all have the stink of its magic on them.”

Maka’s grip on her bag tightened. There was no way that the  _ deijin  _ would be prying Soul from her, but at the same time, she had no idea what she was going to do if the captain of the harbor opened the crate and found her sitting there.

And as if her anxiety was a beacon, the sound of the harbor captain’s step slowed before finally stopping. There was a long silence.

“And what is in here?” The captain’s voice sounded right over Maka’s head. She froze, heart hammering noisily enough to wake the dead.

“Nothing,” the other captain replied quickly. “Just some old hides and a few vases-”

“Certainly doesn’t sound like nothing.” The world tilted as the crate toppled forward and Maka and Blair tumbled out. While the cat landed on her feet and bounded away, Maka fell on her side with a loud thud, but the only thing she noticed was the sharp feeling of broken glass biting into the palm of her hand.

The cold eyes of the captain stared down at her, and she opened her mouth, to say what she still wasn’t sure, when he spoke again. “Well, I suppose you were right when you said that nothing was in here.”

He toed the hide crumpled next to Maka’s foot. “Nothing of value anyways.”

Meanwhile, Maka’s good hand was pressed against her mouth, eyes wide as she watched the captain turned away. “You’re all clear here.”

The captain of the  _ Serolith _ looked nothing short of dumbfounded, but he recovered himself enough to lead the harbor captain and the soldiers out of the hull, grumbling halfheartedly about all her would have to replace and throwing a bewildered glance behind him as he let the captain and the soldiers climb the stairs ahead of him.

When the door to the hull swung shut, Blair came out of her hiding place. “Didn’t I tell you it was going to work?”

Maka expelled the sigh of pain that she had been choking back. “I wonder why you ran away at the first chance, then.” She picked the pieces of glass that had landed on her dress and threw them back into the crate before gingerly moving her injured hand.

It stung even more now that the danger had passed, and she gritted her teeth against the pain. Standing, she brushed off any remaining glass with her good arm and carefully moved her way out of the maze of glass spread across the floor of the ship, still examining her hand.

“Are you okay?”

She looked up at Soul’s worried voice. The flap of the bag had opened when the captain pushed the crate over, and the mirror hung halfway out of the bag. He looked anxiously from her face to her hand. “Is it serious?”

Wiggling her fingers, she tried to manage a smile and then moved forward to pick up her bag. “Nothing broken at least.”

Before Soul could say anything else, the door to the hull opened. The sailor that had led Maka to the crate poked his head nervously. “You still down here?”

“Right here.” Maka waved her uninjured hand at him and he did a double take.

If the sailor noticed her bloody hand, he didn’t show that he did. “How were you able to hide from the harbor captain?”

Maka gave him a weak smile while Blair preened from her perch on a crate. “Just lucky, I guess.”

* * *

Finding a room to sleep for the night was much less eventful than their entrance into Ve Altum. Maka had cleaned her head as best as she could before leaving the ship, rinsing her hand with water and wrapping it with a strip of the extra dress she packed for the trip.

It only stung when she stretched it, like she did now, sitting on the bed of the hotel room that was temporarily home. Blair, who had disappeared off into the night to “find some real food”, had been the one to suggest the run-down hotel, far off from the strip of hotels that lined the way to the palace.

“The hotel needs to be small and smelly enough that the  _ deijin _ will never find us,” she had said when Soul protested. “This is your home for now, prince boy.”

He hadn’t spoken since then, though it wasn’t as if he had the chance to. After the incident on the  _ Serolith,  _ Maka had insisted on burying the mirror underneath the pile of clothes she had packed, stuffing Soul into the bottom of the bag before he could argue anymore.

It was against her instincts and better judgement to have the mirror out on the bed now, but she had felt bad leaving Soul in the bag until she found his body.

“Does it hurt much?” He spoke for the first time since Maka pulled him out of the bag.

“Not really,” she said, relaxing her hand and looking over at Soul. “Not much,” she qualified when she saw his expression.

He didn’t look satisfied, but he didn’t push the subject either. There was a distress on his face that did not show if she didn’t scrutinize his face too much, but seeing the way the air seemed tense and unhappy around Soul told Maka a different story.

“How are you doing?” she asked when he didn’t say anything else.

For a long moment, Soul didn’t answer. And then he said, “You were almost caught.”

“So were you,” she added.

Soul shrugged away her point. “I’m already dead, caught or not,” he said. “But you-”

“You are not dead,” Maka said fiercely, reaching over to snatch up the mirror. “And I knew what I was risking by coming here to stop that from happening. So don’t feel bad over what I chose to do.”

His eyes widened, and then Soul snapped his mouth shut, nodding without meeting Maka’s gaze. “Thank you for picking up this mess then.”

“There is no mess,” Maka said, softening her voice. It had taken her years after her mother died for her to believe that of herself, and she wouldn’t let Soul put himself through the same thing. “Only a  _ deijin _ who doesn’t know what’s coming to them.”


	5. Crux

**Crux:**  noun; a vital or pivotal point.

* * *

The taste of blood and sand was still in Maka’s mouth when a dull stinging in her hand woke her up. For a moment, she blinked blearily at the ceiling, memories of her dream escaping from her mind’s grasp like water through a sieve. Then the events f yesterday’s close call on the _Serolith_ rushed in and she sat up with a jolt, wincing as the pain in her hand sharpened. Looking down, she braced herself to see the cut looking worse than it had yesterday, considering the most she’d been able to do was clean it with water and wrap it in a makeshift bandage, but when she glanced at her hand, she saw the beginnings of a scab already forming over her cut, like it had been healing for days.

Lifting her hand closer to her face, she examined the cut. The glass had dug in deeply when she fell-it had taken forever to pull out every bit of glass that gotten embedded in her skin. And knowing that the vases had been packed with in the dusty hold of the _Serolith_ for weeks, she had assumed the best she could hope for was that the cut would take a long time to close, if it didn’t develop into an infection first.

She was still staring at her hand when Blair’s voice sounded in her ear. “How _do_ you keep your magic a secret?”

Starting, Maka turned her head. The cat was sprawled out on the bed, sunlight changing her fur into a spectrum of purple and black. Her hand drifted back down to her lap. “What magic?”

The cat gave her an astonished look. “You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed it. In your dreams, at the very least.”

“They’re just lucid dreams,” she replied, shaking her head. “My mother taught me.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t common magic and therefore appears like common things,” Blair answered said with a flick of her tail. “There is magic in anything so long as it is alive, but it’s only in some that it’s strong enough to show.”

“In what ways?” Maka frowned-there was an odd sensation in her stomach, like she was looking down at the ground from a very great height.

“Your hand and dreams for one,” said Blair. “Better health, considering you look remarkably well for spending almost a month seasick.”

“I don’t understand.” A low buzz began to spread from Maka’s head to the rest of her body. She tried to think but it was impossible to focus on anything but one thing.

“Understand what?”

Maka didn’t register the cat’s question. Her thumb rubbed the length of the cut, sparking little flares of pain, but she paid no attention to it. “Why didn’t it save her?”

She was more aware of Blair’s weight in her lap than her words. “Save who?”

Her eyes found Blair’s. “My mother.”

The miffed expression on the cat’s face vanished. “Magic has its limits, just like everything,” she said gently. “It doesn’t work the way we want to, either. It is not your fault.”

“I know that.” As quickly as the past had threatened to swallow Maka up, she forced it to snap shut again. “I know it well,” she repeated.

Blinking rapidly, she cast a look around for the mirror. “Where’s Soul?” She spied the mirror on the nightstand next to the bed and picked it up. When she only found her reflection staring back at her, she frowned. “I thought he didn’t sleep.”

“He doesn’t, he’s bound to the mirror.” Blair’s reflection joined hers, but Soul remained absent.

“Where is he?” Fear climbed into Maka’s throat, but she fought down her panic. She tilted the mirror, as if she could see past its borders.

“The _deijin_ must have quickened their work,” said Blair, rising up and pacing away onto the bed. “It was a risk, coming into its territory, but there was nothing else that could be done.”

“You knew?” Maka leaped to her feet, rounding on Blair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because there was no point in it,” the cat answered with a bite of impatience. “How else we were going to restore him?”

Maka gritted her teeth, sweeping a hand through her hair. “How much time do we have?”

“Hours, a day at most,” Blair’s eyes darted to the mirror. “Maybe longer since he’s still tied to the mirror, in part.”

In one fluid motion, Maka seized the mirror and Blair, who yelped indignantly, and scooped them into the bag. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The streets to the royal place were clogged with people, green and gold banners, the elegant writing of Viradi proclaiming something Maka could not read. They hung from every store and house that Maka passed as she fought her way to the palace, people similarly dressed in the royal colors. There was an excited tension in the air, along with the scent of flowers Maka had never seen before. Occasionally the people would burst into song, the rhythmic lilt of their voices an exact mirror to Soul’s.

“What is this?” she whispered to Blair, sidestepping another street vendor draped in gold. “What are they celebrating?”

“Summer solstice,” the cat replied, voice disgruntled and muffled from within the bag. “It was the day the first king after the civil war was crowned so it is one of their greatest holidays.”

“You know a lot about Viradia,” Maka huffed. Sweat from the thick winter cloak she wore to avoid attention trickled down her back as they rounded a corner and the castle came into view. For all that she used to tease Soul about his appearance, the tan and light-haired people of Viradia with their strange-colored eyes did not differ much from him where her pale skin and green eyes did. She’d put the hood up before they left the hotel, but that didn’t stop her from getting strange looks from passerby.

“I may have lived here for a decade or two.”

“Then you know the best way to get into the palace.” She hesitated for a moment as the crowd in front of them slowed to a near standstill. “He is in the palace, isn’t he?”

“The _deijin_ would need to keep his body somewhere private,” Blair replied, poking her head from the flap of Maka’s bag. “And moving a prince from the palace would be a difficult thing to manage.”

Her coinlike eyes traced the many spires of the palace stretching to the sky before fixing on the tallest tower. “That one.”

Maka followed her gaze. “And how do we get in there?”

“They open the courtyard before the palace for the solstice festival,” the cat said, withdrawing back into the bag. “Make it there and leave it to me.”

With the sun steadily climbing into the sky, Maka had no choice but to follow Blair’s words, snaking her way through the crowd. Every minute she had to make a detour when the flow of the people slowed felt like an eternity, and she nearly cried in relief when she spied the iron gates of the palace.

A wave of _deja vu_ washed over Maka as she passed through the gates; the white marble of the courtyard was not as bright as her dream and there were tables and tents set up everywhere with people milling about, but she recognized the gold etchings on the columns and the trees lining the courtyard.

“There,” whispered Blair, peeking out again to gesture to a corner of the courtyard. There was a small stone path leading to the inside of the palace, a single guard standing in front of the entrance. “You can find you way from there.”

“But-”

The cat jumped from the bag before Maka could ask any questions, making a beeline for the guard. Swallowing her words, Maka quickly followed, pretending to be interested in the wares of a nearby vendor as she watched Blair from the corner of her eye.

Blair worked her magic well and efficiently, strolling up the guard and giving her most endearing meow. At first, the guard ignored her, but once Blair began purring and rubbing against his ankles, he bent down and reached out to stroke her head.

With a speed too quick even for a cat, Blair snatched the dagger hanging from the guard’s belt and dashed away into the crowd.

“Hey!” With a cry, the guard sprinted after Blair and Maka made her move. All of the people around her were preoccupied with the festival or the vendors but still she tried walking at a normal pace, however, all but broke out into a run once she reached the stone path.

Her hood tumbled down as she came around a curve in the path, but she didn’t pay attention to it, too focused on keeping her gaze rooted on the tower Blair had pointed out. She was so concentrated on the tower that she didn’t see the person coming from the other direction until she felt her body collide into them.

She stumbled back and managed to keep her balance while the other person wasn’t so lucky, staggering backwards before crashing awkwardly on the ground.

Apologies tumbled from her mouth as Maka rushed forward to help them up. “I am so sorry,” she said rapidly as she grabbed their hand, fingers unusually cold to the touch. Excuses as to why she was in the palace and not the courtyard tangled in a knot on her tongue. “I got lost and I wasn’t watching where I was going and-”

She stopped abruptly as the person stood and her eyes traveled to his face.

Maka’s hand was still in his so when she spoke again, she was able to feel how his fingers curled around hers in surprise. “Soul.”


	6. Schadenfreude

**Schadenfreude:** noun; the pleasure one takes from another's misfortune.

* * *

 

Before he was cursed, Soul didn’t dream often. He barely slept enough to have time to dream at all. Insomnia stole his sleep away, and when it didn’t, his dreams were strangled by nightmares of dancing red demons, of drowning in black seas that smelled of rotting flesh and blood.

Coaching from a strange-looking old woman Soul’s parents had brought in when a spate of sleepless nights nearly ate his sanity had taught him to be aware of dreams, that his nightmares were nothing but figments of his imagination. All it had done was increase Soul’s fear of the night and sleeping.

Instead of continuing to bother his parents, whose patience he sensed was coming to an end, Soul pretended that the old lady’s coaching worked and learned to hide the aftermath of his nightmares and how to steal naps during the day. When the nights were too bad to be alone, he snuck into his older brother’s room, where Wes would always open the door, no matter the time of night and stay up until Soul could fall back asleep again.

It was not a solution, it was hardly a compromise, but Soul managed to hold out until he was eleven and his dreams finally changed and he learned for the first time that he was doomed.

The night had started out normally enough-there had been no anxiety coiling in Soul’s stomach as he got ready for bed, like there usually was when it was going to be an especially bad night, and he’d almost begun to hope that his dreams would not visit him that night. That almost-hope had been dashed when he woke up in darkness, like he always did at the beginning of a nightmare.

There had hardly been time to brace himself when the sensation of falling, falling,  _ falling  _ washed over him. He knew what was coming next and he’d fought against it, clamping his hands over his mouth until the compulsion to breathe won out against his will, and he breathed deeply, inhaling black blood and choking as it forced its way down his throat.

Soul struggled like he always had as he sunk down to the floor of the black blood, hoping that he’d wake up or drown quickly, but neither had happened.

A bright light had split down from the surface instead, and Soul had collapsed as air rushed in his lungs. From above a voice called down to him. “There you are.”

All Soul could do was look up.

“Hello.” The voice of the woman gazing down at him had an ethereal ring to it, and for a moment, Soul had believed she was an angel. She looked angelic enough, with her porcelain skin and ebony hair. And then she had smiled. “My little changeling.”

And it was then that Soul noticed her eyes looked like the center of a web.

Exactly like the web that began draping itself over him.

* * *

Soul’s hand twitched in her hand again, and Maka started, nearly pulling away. But she couldn’t; the coolness of Soul’s palm was a complement to the sweaty, nervous warmth of her own, the weight of his hand so much more substantial than the touch of his dream self.

There was a beat of tense silence as the two stared at each other. A knot of fear wound tightly in Maka’s chest the longer Soul looked at her blankly.  _ He doesn’t remember me. _

And then slowly, as if peeling away a mask, his lips parted and recognition crept across his face. “Maka?”

“Soul!” She nearly crushed his hand in her excitement, and she dropped his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “When you, I just-” Maka swallowed, thoughts too scattered to compose herself. “When I didn’t see you in the mirror,” she started again. “I thought the worst.”

“I thought I was done for myself, but then I woke up in my bed.” An awkward laugh fell from his mouth as he ran a hand through his hair. “You were right, I was sleeping the whole entire time.”

Maka gave a shaky laugh herself, and then a question sprang to her mind. “But how did you escape the  _ deijin _ ? Blair told me the  _ deijin’s  _ magic was stronger here, it’s why we came here.”

“Blair?” Something sharpened in his eyes, but it passed as rapidly as it appeared. “Where is she?”

“Somewhere nearby, she distracted a guard so I could find you,” Maka answered hurriedly. “But what about the  _ deijin _ ? Blair said they weren’t easily defeated.”

“They’re not,” Soul answered. “But my parents were working while I was trapped in that cursed sleep, they managed to seal her in our dungeons.”

“And that’s when you disappeared from the mirror,” Maka filled in.

“Exactly.” Soul bent down and picked up her bag, which she hadn’t even realized she had dropped. “Would you like to see her?”

The question shocked her, and Maka paused in taking the bag from Soul. “What?”

“See the  _ deijin, _ ” Soul repeated. “She’s sealed so it’s safe.”

“I don’t know.” Reluctance pushed Maka a half a step back. “Gloating over a magical being like that doesn’t seem safe.”

“It’s not gloating, it’s coming to see what you came to do finished.” Soul took Maka’s hand again, rubbed his thumb over her knuckles like he did when she dreamed of visiting her mother’s grave. “You want to see everything, right? That’s why you have so many worlds when you dream.”

“I suppose.” Maka’s hesitation was dissolving. She had traveled nearly four thousand miles to help Soul and it didn’t make much sense to stop short of her goal when she’d risked so much. Looking up, she squared her shoulders. “All right.”

Soul’s grip around her hand turned into iron. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Shortly after the woman appeared, Soul heard the rumors. It had been only a furtive glance from the servants at first, the slight pause in conversation when he entered a room. And then, as the woman made a permanent home in his subconscious, it had turned into whispers, dark looks, and both servants and courtiers alike refusing to be in the same room alone with him.

When the word “cursed” began following Soul around, he tracked down the only person who could be relied on to tell him the truth.

“It’s just servants’ talk,” Wes said easily as they walked to their lessons when Soul asked him about it. “Uncle was apparently cursed too and you see how much the people love him now.”

Soul had persisted. “He wandered around town in a dragon deer’s mask during the full moon, I don’t do that.”

“People are going to talk,” Wes had said as they reached the room for his tutor. “Let them and then prove them wrong.”

He had disappeared into the classroom after that, but Soul had caught the way his smile had vanished as the door swung closed.

The next best person he could go to was Arlin, the great-grandfather of his father’s chief advisor. The old man had been a boy when Soul’s great-great-grandfather had put the country back together after the war and was the only person alive who could remember those times with detailed accuracy.

He was also blind, meaning he never cringed when Soul came into his room.

“People say I’m cursed,” Soul had said by way of greeting after his conversation with Wes.

The old man had shown no surprise to Soul or his words. He’d shifted in his seat by the window instead, his silent invitation for Soul to sit. When he did, the old man spoke. “You are.”

After years of believing the same thing, doubt reared its head and Soul crossed his arms. “How do you know that?”

“I was born in the first years of the civil war,” the old man said. He was facing out to the window, as if to enjoy the view outside. “Do you know what war looks like?”

Soul had shaken his head, but then remembered the man couldn’t see him. “No.”

“There’s death,” he’d said. “And illness and desperation that turns into disgust at what you might do to survive.” Slowly, Arlin twisted to Soul, staring at him as if he could see him. “But above all, there’s hopelessness. And people will do anything to bring hope back, especially those in power.”

Soul had stirred uneasily. “And what did my great-great-grandfather do?”

“Summon a  _ deijin _ ,” the old man said simply. “Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, he asked for peace and prosperity and that was what he got.”

Something inside of Soul went very cold. “Magic doesn’t come without a price.”

“No,” Arlin agreed. “It does not.”

It had taken everything to ask his next question. “And what was the price?”

The old man’s answer had been one word. “You.”

* * *

Soul didn’t let go of Maka’s hand as he led her down into the dungeons. Funnily enough, the dungeons were located in the tower that Blair had pointed out, although when Soul opened the door, they headed downwards instead of up.

“What will you do with the  _ deijin _ ?” she asked as the stairs curved around a stone column. It was practically night inside the tower, small torches lighting only a limited part of the building. “Now that you’ve trapped it.”

“That is up for my parents to decide.” Soul shrugged. “They might want to use it.”

“A  _ deijin _ is not a tool or a weapon.” Maka pulled her hand from his. “It would try to kill you again, given half the chance.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Glancing back at her, there was an odd look in Soul’s eyes that Maka couldn’t quite recognize. “But being the second son doesn’t give my opinion too much weight.”

“It should matter,” she said stubbornly. “You’ve just been cursed and you’re a prince.”

A faint smile crossed Soul’s lips. “You sound exactly like Wes.”

“Wes?” Keeping her eyes on his face, she asked, “Is he your brother?”

“The one and only.”

“I would like to meet him.” The words were out before she could filter herself. “If you’re all right with it, that is,” she added quickly.

“Both Wes and my parents would love to meet you,” Soul answered, his smile growing slightly. He held open a door for Maka as they reached the bottom. “There’s just one small problem.”

“Am I not in the proper clothing to meet the royal family?” Maka teased as she entered. “I thought dust-covered clothes were all the fashion.”

“Not quite.” A woman’s voice came from behind her as the door clanged closed. “Although that’d certainly be a problem in a normal situation.”

Maka whirled around. In the window of the door, Soul was standing but slumped, like strings had been holding him up. Beside him was a woman in a dress as black as her hair, a smile twisting on her lips. Her eyes, with their web-covered irises, danced as she spoke in Soul’s voice.

“Hello, little angel.”

Still smiling, the  _ deijin  _ held up the bag that Maka had never taken from Soul and turned it upside down, the shards of the mirror tumbling onto the floor beside the broken body of Soul.

In not a single fragment did Maka see Soul’s reflection.


End file.
